1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid ejecting apparatus, such as an ink jet type recording apparatus, and a method of controlling the liquid ejecting apparatus, and, in particular, to a liquid ejecting apparatus that ejects liquid from nozzles by driving a pressure generation section in such a way as to apply a driving waveform included in a driving signal to the pressure generation section and by generating pressure variation in liquid within pressure chambers which communicate with the nozzles, and a method of controlling the liquid ejecting apparatus.
2. Related Art
A liquid ejecting apparatus is an apparatus which includes a liquid ejecting head and ejects (discharges) various types of liquid from the liquid ejecting head. The liquid ejecting apparatus includes, for example, an image recording apparatus, such as an ink jet type printer (hereinafter, simply referred to as a printer) or an ink jet type plotter. In recent years, the liquid ejecting apparatus has been applied to various types of manufacturing apparatuses with emphasis on a feature in which it is possible to cause a negligible tiny amount of liquid to accurately land on a specific position. The liquid ejecting apparatus is applied to, for example, a display manufacturing apparatus which manufactures the color filters of a liquid crystal display or the like, an electrode forming apparatus which forms electrodes of an organic Electro Luminescence (EL) display, a Field Emission Display (FED), or the like, and a chip manufacturing apparatus which manufactures a biochip (biochemical element). Further, a recording head for the image recording apparatus ejects fluid ink, and a color material ejecting head for the display manufacturing apparatus ejects the solutions of respective color materials of Red (R), Green (G), and Blue (B). In addition, an electrode material ejecting head for the electrode forming apparatus ejects fluid electrode materials, and a bio organic matter ejecting head for the chip manufacturing apparatus ejects the solution of a bio organic matter.
An ink jet type recording head (one kind of a liquid ejecting head. Hereinafter, simply referred to as a recording head), which is mounted on the above-described printer, includes nozzle rows (nozzle groups) in which nozzles for ejecting ink are provided in a plurality of rows, and, for example, a piezoelectric element, a heating element, an electrostatic actuator or the like as a pressure generation section which ejects ink from the nozzles by generating pressure variation in ink within pressure chambers which communicate with the nozzles. Further, the printer is configured to eject ink by driving the pressure generation section in such a way as to apply a driving pulse, which is generated by a driving signal generation section, to the pressure generation section.
Here, in recent years, there is a case in which the printer is used for the purpose of printing a recording medium, which is larger than a recording medium, such as printing paper used in a general home printer, for example, outdoor advertisement. For example, a resin film which is formed of vinyl chloride, or a film which is acquired by coating or laminating polyester fiber woven fabric called tarpaulin using synthetic resin is used as the recording medium in this case with emphasis on weather resistance. Further, there is a case in which ink including thermoplastic resin particles (hereinafter, referred to as resin ink) are used as ink which is used to perform printing and recording on the recording medium (for example, refer to JP-A-2010-221670). When the resin ink hardens on the recording medium, a strong resin film is formed, with the result that the resin ink is excellent in abrasion resistance and weather resistance compared to water-based ink, and thus the resin ink is suitable for printing of outdoor advertisements or the like.
However, when an image or the like is recorded by ejecting resin ink to a hydrophobic recording medium, such as the resin film, the resin ink which lands on the recording medium should be rapidly solidified and fixed, and thus a configuration has been proposed in which a heating section (platen heater) that heats the recording medium on a platen is provided, and in which the ink that lands on the recording medium is promoted to be dried and fixed by heating the recording paper using the heating section.
In the above configuration in which the recording medium is heated using the heating section, heat from the heating section is transmitted to the recording head, and thus the viscosity of ink is changed as time elapses. Generally, the viscosity of ink is lowered as temperature in the recording head rises. When the viscosity of ink is lowered, the amount of ink (weight and volume) which is ejected using the same pressure increases. That is, ejection characteristics vary according to temperature. Therefore, in a printer according to the related art, a configuration has been proposed in which a temperature detection section, such as a thermistor, is provided in the vicinity of the inside or the outside of a recording head and in which ejection characteristics are uniformly maintained regardless of temperature by changing a driving pulse according to detected temperature. However, if temperature detection and driving pulse correction are frequently performed during a printing process, there is a problem in that the throughput of the entire printing process is lowered because the processing function of the control unit of the printer is caused to be lowered.
The problem is not limited to a printer that ejects ink and exists in a liquid ejecting apparatus that ejects liquid which has relatively large change in viscosity with regard to temperature in the same manner.